Photos: SpaceX booster lands for second time on drone ship

SpaceX’s reused Falcon 9 first stage booster returned to a landing on an ocean-going platform a few minutes after launching March 30 with the SES 10 communications satellite, then returned to Port Canaveral early Tuesday.

Standing more than 150 feet (nearly 50 meters) tall, the booster sailed into port around sunrise Tuesday after riding SpaceX’s landing barge from a point around 340 miles (550 kilometers) offshore Florida in the Atlantic Ocean.

These photos show the first stage, which first flew in April 2016, completing its second mission with a braking burn by its center engine, then touching down on the drone ship. The second batch of photos show the vessel arriving at Port Canaveral.

SpaceX technicians plan to offload the rocket from the barge for inspections, and the company intends to put the booster on display somewhere at the Cape Canaveral spaceport.